Perhaps the only thing that changes more rapidly than technology in today's amped-up digital environment is the terminology used to describe that technology and its impact on consumers--and marketers. One recent example is the advent of the term "omnichannel" marketing, which many struggle to differentiate from another relatively recent term--"multichannel" marketing. Still, those who are most enmeshed in the field say there is a key distinction between the two, and it's one that will have an impact on marketers as they continue to seek ways of having a meaningful impact on the consumers they hope to engage. And, importantly, it's less about technology than it may seem.

ForgeRock launched the open source OpenIDM project, which seeks to to create an identity management system for enterprise software systems. OpenIDM provides a web interface for system administrators to create, update and delete user accounts with their respective privileges and identity data on diverse systems. It works in conjunction with a wide range of identity software, including the ForgeRock I3 platform. The project aims to deliver an enterprise provisioning solution in early 2011.

ForgeRock is investing in OpenIDM to create the third "pillar" of its open source Identity and Access management portfolio, which is part of the ForgeRock I3 platform. OpenIDM's architecture is flexible and developer-friendly, and enables a hybrid model of storing entitlement-carrying attributes for certification, audits and compliance reasons. OpenIDM is fully open source.